Line 36 of the record
How Can Georgia’s Open Records Act Be Used to Obtain Police Reports GDOT Data or Other Public Documents Relevant to an Accident Claim?
Make the request to the records custodian of the agency that holds the record. It must produce responsive records in a reasonable time, at most three business days, or by then describe them and give a timeline (O.C.G.A. § 50-18-71(b)(1)(A)). Crash reports have their own rule: a person named in the report is entitled to a copy, and others need a statutory “need”. Road and signal records are requested the same way.
Making the request
Since Senate Bill 12 (2025), “All requests to inspect or copy public records under this article shall be made upon a custodian” (§ 50-18-71(a)(2)(A)). A custodian is “the agency that has charge, custody, care, and control over a public record or an employee of such agency who is designated as the custodian of such agency’s records” (§ 50-18-70(b)(1.1)). The custodian must also retrieve public records that a private person or company prepared, keeps, or stores for the agency, but not records held by another public entity (§ 50-18-71(a)(2)(B)). For an accident claim, that means identifying which agency made or keeps the record: the police department or sheriff’s office that worked the crash, the city or county that maintains the road, or the Georgia Department of Transportation for a state route.
A request is more useful when it names the date, time, location, and record types, and asks for electronic copies where they exist.
Deadlines and costs
| Rule | What § 50-18-71 provides |
|---|---|
| Response time | Records within a reasonable time "not to exceed three business days of receipt of a request"; if not all are ready, a description and a timeline within that period |
| Records that did not exist | The agency is not required to produce records that did not exist when the request was made |
| Search and retrieval charge | No more than the prorated hourly salary of the lowest paid full-time employee able to do the work, with no charge for the first quarter hour |
| Copies | Up to 10 cents per page for letter or legal size documents, or actual cost for others |
| Withholding | The agency must cite the specific exemption "by Code section, subsection, and paragraph" |
The crash report
Individual Georgia Uniform Motor Vehicle Accident Reports are not open to everyone. Under § 50-18-72(a)(5), “any person or entity whose name or identifying information is contained in” the report is entitled to a copy, personally or through a lawyer or other representative. Anyone else must submit a written statement of need, and the statute’s list of qualifying needs includes a person who “Was allegedly or actually injured by the accident”, a witness, an insurer of a party, a person alleged to be liable, and an attorney investigating a potential claim that “a roadway, railroad crossing, or intersection is unsafe”. Knowingly making a false statement to obtain a report is a crime. The report itself, and how it differs from the driver’s SR-13 form, is covered in the Georgia SR-13 accident report.
Records about the road
When a road condition may have caused the crash, the agency’s own records can show what it knew and when: complaints and work orders for the location, maintenance and repair logs, signal timing and maintenance records, and reports of earlier crashes there. Whether a city, county, or the state can be sued for the condition, and what notice it must first receive, are separate questions covered in claims involving road defects, missing signs, and poor maintenance and the ante litem notice requirements.
When an agency withholds a record
As published in 2024, § 50-18-72(a)(4) exempts law enforcement and prosecution records “in any pending investigation or prosecution of criminal or unlawful activity, other than initial police arrest reports and initial incident reports”, until the litigation becomes final. A crash that led to criminal charges can therefore delay access to investigative files while the initial report remains available.
Toll and travel data have their own exemption. A 2024 act, Senate Bill 353, effective March 4, 2024, exempts records or data of the Georgia Department of Transportation and the State Road and Tollway Authority that would reveal the financial accounts, travel history, vehicle information, or personally identifiable information of a motorist on a toll project or roadway, as the Office of Legislative Counsel’s 2024 summary describes it. On that description, it covers toll and travel records about another motorist.
If an agency does not comply, the superior courts have jurisdiction to enforce the Act, and any person may bring the action (§ 50-18-73(a)). The court can award attorney’s fees and litigation expenses against a party that acted without substantial justification (§ 50-18-73(b)). A knowing and willful violation can carry a fine of up to $1,000 for the first violation and up to $2,500 for each additional violation within 12 months (§ 50-18-74(a)).
A request plan after a crash
- Crash report from the investigating agency, with the report number.
- Body camera, dash camera, and 911 recordings from the same agency, if they exist.
- For a road claim, the road owner’s complaints, work orders, and prior crash reports for the location.
- Signal timing and maintenance records for an intersection.
- A calendar note three business days after each request.
Sources
- O.C.G.A. §§ 50-18-71, 50-18-72 (text as published in March 2024), with later amendments read in the bills as passed: Senate Bill 12 (2025) added the custodian definition to § 50-18-70 and revised only subsection (a) of § 50-18-71; House Bill 288 (2025) added § 50-18-72(a)(4.1) for Giglio-list records; House Bill 297 (2026) revised § 50-18-72(a)(51). None of them changed the response-time rule or paragraphs (a)(4) and (a)(5) of § 50-18-72. Senate Bill 353 (2024) also amended § 50-18-72; its toll and travel-data exemption is stated here as the 2024 summary describes it.
- O.C.G.A. §§ 50-18-73, 50-18-74 (text of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, November 2022 release; no amendment listed in the 2023 to 2026 summaries of general statutes enacted).
- Office of Legislative Counsel, 2025 Summary of General Statutes Enacted (Act 276, SB 12); 2024 Summary of General Statutes Enacted (Act 367, SB 353).
This page describes Georgia law as of October 2026 for general information. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship.